Sri Lankan President Chandrika Kumaratunga has rejected as bias the final report presented by the Sri Lanka Monitoring Mission(SLMM) on the sinking of a Chinese trawler in the northeastern seas off Mullaitivu last month, her office said on Tuesday.

The deadly SARS virus is undermining regional cooperation and sowing mistrust among Asian countries, many of whom are still on the road to recovery from the 1997 economic crisis, several political leaders and analysts said yesterday.

Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra yesterday moved to keep up the momentum in the government’s war against drugs, vowing that he would tighten the knot on drug traders, while denying reports that heroin was set to surge into the country to replace amphetamines.

Reacting to statements by the leaders of the United Kingdom and United States today that the United Nations would play a "vital role" in post-war Iraq, a UN spokesman welcomed such suggestions but stressed that any potential involvement of the world body could come only at the direction of the Security Council.

Pakistan has said it would take "appropriate" steps if India test-fired Agni III long-range ballistic missile while asserting that it also has a right to launch a pre-emptive strike if the other side thinks the same way.

Government today told the Supreme Court that adequate safeguards had been provided under POTA and sought to clarify that a person arrested under it could apply for bail even before completing a year in jail.

Mr. Ali Saleem of the Asian Legal Resource Centre (ALRC) made an oral intervention on behalf of the ALRC on 'Food insecurity in Myanmar' at the 59th Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights under the Agenda Item 10: Economic, social and cultural rights. This intervention was made on the 07 April 2003.

In the 19th day of the invasion of Iraq, the American invasion forces made a "show of muscles" in the downtown of Baghdad by reaching the extent of breaking into a presidential complex, saying it was a " strong message " to the regime of Saddam Hussein which seemed yesterday for the first time as not having the ability to repulse the successive attacks which also targeted more Iraqi civilians in their houses.

The U.S.-led coalition declared Wednesday that President Saddam Hussein's regime has lost control over Baghdad, where citizens have taken to the streets in jubilation in some parts of the capital despite continuing fighting elsewhere there.

The European Burma network , which met recently in Brussels, resolved to commend Thaksin Shinawatra, for offering to mediate between the Government of Myanmar and the ethnic nationality armies on the Thai – Burma border, with the view to bring peace to the people who have suffered so much for so long.